The Lasting Power

The explosion of symphonic tinged power metal in the late 90s that was ushered in by Rhapsody saw the rise of many bands in and around Italy, some of them short lived, but some that lasted through the changing tides of the past couple of years and are still with us in something that resembles their original form. Among them is the six piece band Thy Majestie, who came into the scene fairly early and bolstered the style established on “Symphony Of Enchanted Lands” and “Shadowland” with a very similar set of musical and lyrical trappings. Their debut album “The Lasting Power” takes a similar route as Landguard and later French adherents to the style Fairyland and puts a somewhat greater emphasis on riff work than on the symphonic side of things, leaning a bit closer to a “Keepers 1 & 2” era Helloween character but very different from mainline German power metal bands who took similar influences such as Gamma Ray and Freedom Call.

Although musically this is in the same style as Rhapsody, these guys do a pretty good job of differentiating themselves from them. Vocalist Dario Grillo has a higher and lighter sounding voice, somewhat akin to a cross between ex-Vision Divine vocalist Michele Luppi and Magic Kingdom’s Max Leclercq. There are times when he goes dangerously high and gets close to sounding like Elisa Martin, basically embodying the classic stereotype of Italian power metal vocalists having a boyish counter-tenor nature to them. The band also seems to be extremely found of having numerous instrumental interludes, to the point of being comparable to the massive collection of brief story interludes heard on Blind Guardian’s “Nightfall In Middle Earth”. The presentation of these interludes is much more large sounding and symphonic rather than folksy and loaded with character voice narrations, giving a good deal of prominence to the keyboards in sort of a Fairyland fashion, but with a fair share of solid guitar riffs that keep things from getting as flowery.

The flow of the album can come across as a bit uneven because of the disproportionate length of the full length songs in relation to the shorter interludes, and also due to the long contrasting buildup sections that usually occur within the longer songs, which themselves listen in a similar fashion to the interludes. The entire album basically listens like an operatic stage performance, more so than any Rhapsody or Fairyland release, and is quite musically ambitious. Songs such as “Under Siege” and “Sword Of Justice” are extremely involved and loaded with intricate riffs and blazing solos, though also steeped in multiple orchestral ambiences provided by the keyboards. The sing along choruses act sort of like anchors to keep the song centered, as much of the rest of the sections within the song will tend to ramble about and explore a lot of territory. The Rhapsody tendencies are definitely easy to find in the keyboard themes and melodies, but the guitar riffing is a bit more varied and ambitious, and the songs don’t use the double bass rumble to the same degree.

It’s a bit odd, but in spite of all the interesting things going on in this album, the number of what can be considered full length songs, ergo ones that break the 2 minute 45 second mark, number a stellar 6 in total. Often several shorter instrumental or brief sung interludes will be stacked together in between the longer songs, which flow from one to the next so smoothly that you wouldn’t know a new track had started if you didn’t first look at the list on the back of the CD case. The most auspicious example of this is the space between “Under Siege” and “Mystery Of Forest”, where 3 interludes pass in rapid succession like 3 minor events in a fantasy novel before hitting the next dramatic point in the plot. “Mystery Of Forest” also proves to be the most interesting song on here, incorporating some folk melodies not all that dissimilar to what Elvenking would do a year later on “Heathenreel” into an epic that ends up cooking faster than all others found on here.

Although by today’s standards this album is extremely drenched in power metal and symphonic cliché, for its time it was a fresh listen. The two bands that this sounds the most similar to, namely Landguard and Fairyland, didn’t really rise to prominence until after this came out. It embodies some of the stereotypes of the flowery, Italian brand of this genre, but here it proves to be one of those positive stereotypes that are only decried by the most religiously deluded of PC Nazis. This is highly recommended to anyone who likes this style, and it seems to be a bit underrated due to the lack of attention it has received in relation of their subsequent releases.